Not Telling George
by Silvaer
Summary: What was he going to tell George? A little Percy oneshot.


**Not-Telling George**

What was he going to tell George?

What was he going to say to his little brother? That his twin was dead? Killed by an Avada Kedavra, an exploding wall?

Blue eyes were wide, staring at, yet not seeing, the burnt tapestry across the hall. The Great Hall was silent except for the sobbing and moaning of those alive, of those who had discovered their friends, mother, father, _brother_ dead and lying silent and still in the rows on the cold stone ground.

What was he going to tell George?

He was sitting on the ground, leaning exhausted against the wall, and in the corner of his eye, if he bothered to look, he had a good view of the door. He was the only Weasley in the room at the moment – Ron and some others had insisted on him staying while they went to fetch… fetch Fred's … body.

He was battered but successful after his duel with Rookwood, avenging the lost twin.

Eyes swivelled to the door, sensing movement. A head of red hair. Pale complexion.

No, it couldn't be…

"Fred?" He called out slowly, rising wearily and just as slow, eyes growing impossibly wide as he drank in the sight of the standing, moving figure. His arm lifted and a hand reached out shakily, and suddenly, somehow, he was in front of the apparition, his hand meeting to rest on the other's shoulder.

"Fred!" He cried out, blinded in exhaustion, in relief and joy and there was a hysterical note in his voice, but he couldn't even begin to care. "Fred! Oh, Merlin, Fred!" Percy couldn't seem to manage anything else.

But then the world crashed and shattered around his ears as the twin spoke. "Percy? Are you alright? You haven't been away from us for so long that you've forgotten which one of us is which, have you?" The world spun off its axis and it felt like he was falling and losing their brother all over again, over and over, with the blast and the scream and that echoing laugh.

He didn't have to look up to know that George – George! – had a tired, yet still humoured, smile on his face. Percy could hear it in his voice, but at the same time, he could also hear that it was George, George, _George_, and not Fred. Cerulean eyes glazed over again and tears spilled uncontrolled down his face as he noted the missing ear on the side of the twin's head and _that_ voice just echoing again and again in his mind.

When the twins were young, Percy could never stand being tricked by them, mostly for their switching identity trick. He, also as a young child, could not bear being unable to tell the two apart, unlike the rest of the family, who thought their antics were cute and funny (most of the time). Thus, in his youth, Percy spent an age studying them, their mannerisms, everything, just because he simply had to know. However, he was met with failure when he tested himself out, and the older brother was tricked again, but ironically, after that last incident, Percy became the only Weasley to always be able to tell them apart, stunning them each time whenever he bothered to try.

But no more.

What was he going to tell George? George, who was standing in front of him, an arm's length away and looking at him with such a concerned expression and he wanted to cry again – what was he going to tell George?

Yet in the end, there was nothing for him to say, nothing to tell George, as beyond the wailing of those around them and his own hiccuping, subsiding sobs, he heard the groan of doors behind him and the still-standing twin, George, who had looked so lively just two seconds before, George, who stilled and froze in plane in front of his older brother.

Blue eyes were so wide, so shocked, they threatened to roll as Percy head someone's breathing catch in their throat – was it him? was it George? – and George's mouth opened in a silent scream, his face paling further and Percy blinked through his tears –

"FRED!" And George was gone in that blink, the cry finally tearing through the twin's throat, the man leaping across the hall and practically crashed into Ron who was half supporting, half dragging Fred's body and –

And Percy fell to his knees as guilt and horror ate away at his insides, tears sliding rapidly down his face with no sound as shock coursed through him again, taking away his sobs, and it was George who was screaming and crying at the fallen body of his twin.

It was George who felt like his heart had just been ripped from his chest and his soul torn in half, and it was George, not Fred, never Fred, because

Because Fred was dead.

* * *

><p>AN: Written on April 8, 2011. I never got around to typing it up and posting it, it was so sad...but here you go! A review would be lovely, since I've never done this before.


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